Industry Risk Disclosures for Futures and Options
by Rick Thachuk
The following is content from a typical Risk Disclosure that is usually required to be read by any individual prior to the opening of a futures and options trading account. It appears here only to highlight the risks associated with trading high-leverage instruments such as futures and [...]

Option Spreads: Putting the Odds in Your Favor
by Rick Thachuk
[ A version of this article appears in the Feb 2000 issue of Futures magazine. ]
Option spreads, created by buying an option and simultaneously selling a related option, are seldom the choice investment vehicle of position traders, especially beginning traders, largely because of their intuitive [...]

How Options are treated in the Account Statement
by Rick Thachuk
After the outright purchase or sale of an option, beginners may be a little confused over how the option transaction is recorded in the account statement, particularly from day to day. For instance, if a customer buys an option for $700, then they may expect their [...]

Using Options to Protect a Futures Position
by Rick Thachuk
[ A version of this article appears in the July 1999 issue of Futures magazine. ]
Many traders use protective stop orders to limit the loss of a futures position. Whenever the market price reaches the stop price, so that the open futures position is incurring loss, [...]

Which Option to Buy?
by Rich Thachuk
Buying options on futures has the advantage of limiting downside risk. The most you can lose on an option purchase is the cost of the option (including commissions), and that’s all. If you think that the price of a commodity, say, corn is going to rise, then buy call options [...]

How to Read an Account Statement
by Rick Thachuk
ACCOUNT STATEMENT – SAMPLE
===================================================================
YOUR NAME YOUR ACCOUNT NUMBER 2/26/99 [1]
2/26/99 US DOLLARS FUNDS-SEGREGATED ACCOUNTS [...]

Commodity Risk Depends Upon Trading Strategy
by Rick Thachuk
Many believe that commodity trading is risky and rightly so. This is reinforced even by the disclosures required by federal regulators that emphasize the inherent risk of commodity trading and its corresponding unsuitability for many members of the investment community. However, the degree of risk of a commodity [...]

Is Day Trading Less Risky?
by Rick Thachuk
Day trading has become more popular among retail traders over the last several years primarily because of the affordability of real-time prices (many on-line trading accounts now provide real-time prices free of charge), the availability over the Internet of free intra-day graphs, such as 10-minute bar charts, and the [...]

Managing Margin Funds
by Rick Thachuk
The margin account provides the capital to finance futures positions. It is a direct measure of the customer’s equity so it is important to properly manage margin funds both in terms of monitoring the level of equity in the account and getting the most out of your margin dollars.

Monitoring Margin Funds
When [...]

Comparing Price Movements: Options vs. Futures
by Rick Thachuk
Many traders often start with the simple strategy of buying options. This is a comparatively safe investment approach relative to trading futures outright, and the general idea that the purchase of options limits downside risk to the option premium plus commission and fees is well understood by most. [...]

Buying Options
by Rick Thachuk
Beginning traders often are urged to limit their initial trading activity to the purchase of options – buying a call option if prices are expected to rise and buying a put option if prices are expected to fall. Options have the primary advantage of limiting downside risk: For any option that is [...]